It’s so hard to find real heroes, these days — especially in an America where people seem to have forgotten there is no pricetag on freedom.

Nevertheless, I’ve found one. His name is Larry Klayman. He might not look like a freedom fighter. He looks more like an accountant — or, worse yet, a lawyer, which is exactly what he is.

But Klayman is no ordinary attorney — at least not in the Johnnie Cochran or Janet Reno tradition. He’s a man who gave up the big fees, the prestige of a high government appointment and the comfort of a well-known firm to practice what I call “guerrilla law,” challenging official abuses and cover-ups the way the American Civil Liberties Union should.

What has he accomplished? Almost everything we know about the campaign financing scandals and the foreign money that poisoned our electoral system in 1996 we know because of the determined work of Larry Klayman.

The latest front opened by Klayman’s Judicial Watch organization is in investigating President Clinton’s decision to sell U.S. nuclear technology to China.

“The circumstances of the deal are suspicious and may be related to the Clinton fund-raising scandal,” says Klayman, in his typically understated tones.

Judicial Watch is the group that literally discovered John Huang in its lawsuit against the Clinton Commerce Department.

“During the (Ron) Brown trade mission to China — where the Clinton administration brokered an energy joint venture for John Huang’s Lippo Group, Entergy Corporation and the Chinese government — many U.S. nuclear energy suppliers were also present, including Westinghouse Electric Corporation,” Klayman said. “Several of these companies donated money to the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign and the Democratic National Committee, not only to procure seats on the trade mission, but perhaps to secure Clinton administration approval to sell nuclear technology to China. This raises the specter that U.S. national security interests have been sold and compromised for campaign contributions. The sale of nuclear technology to China — a significant future military threat to the United States and the world — is something which should not be entrusted to the Clinton administration, particularly while the campaign fund-raising scandal is still unfolding.”

Also recently Judicial Watch announced it would be filing briefs to oppose Michael Brown’s plea agreement with the Justice Department. The son of the late Commerce secretary took the Fifth Amendment rather than testify to Rep. Dan Burton’s House Government and Oversight Committee.

The younger Brown was retained as a lawyer and board member by Norma and Gene Lum of Dynamic Energy of Oklahoma and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars even before he had passed the bar exam. Testimony by some of the other principals of Dynamic Energy allege that Michael Brown was used as a conduit to funnel illegal gratuities to his father.

Reno’s Justice Department never bothered with those charges. Instead, it agreed to allow Brown to plead to a misdemeanor. The case was then assigned to a district court judge who was reportedly a friend of the Brown family and was actually recommended for appointment by Ron Brown himself.

But, if you have any doubts about Klayman’s tenacity, courage or the rightness of his cause, consider the fact that the Clinton administration offered him a $2 million bribe to call off the dogs.

You see, Klayman is a pitbull and the Clinton administration knows it. Judicial Watch alone has filed lawsuit after lawsuit to get to the bottom of the criminal corruption emanating not only from the White House but from much of official Washington. The group has uncovered scandal after scandal — including shredding of documents, obstruction of justice, illegal campaign contributions, money laundering and possible espionage.

“Now as we prepare to depose John Huang again and other Clinton officials, the Clinton administration has offered to pay us an immediate $2 million bribe in attorneys fees if we will agree to stop before we uncover all of the truth,” he says. “This incredible and outrageous offer to muzzle the American people’s only hope of getting to the truth in the ongoing Clinton administration scandals is made even more horrible by the fact that they want to use your money, not their own, to pay the bribe. … But I won’t be bribed and stopped now. The courts have ruled that we will be able to depose under oath Hillary Clinton, Bernard Nussbaum, Craig Livingstone, Anthony Marcesa and others involved in the Clinton administration scandals.”

There aren’t many people I trust in Washington. Larry Klayman is one of them. If we’re ever going to root out the evil that is permeating the political culture inside the beltway, it’s going to be because of a few committed and determined heroes like him.

It’s not often I recommend people send their hard-earned dollars to any cause other than the Western Journalism Center, but Judicial Watch also needs support. As you can imagine, Larry Klayman’s fight is a costly one. Let’s make sure he gets his $2 million and the crooks, too.